A few questions before I start my first batch.

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mhdfj2

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First off I wanna say I love the forums, very helpful. I'm about to start my first batch of homebrew, a wheat beer, and I have a few questions before I start so I don't mess anything up.

1. Should I wait until my water reaches 150 to put my grains in, or put them in when the water is cold?

2. When pouring my wort into the fermenting bucket do I need to strain it? And also do I need to pour the wort carefully or is it alright for it to splash a little bit since the yeast has not been added yet?

3. When I take my hydrometer should I take a sample out of the fermenter or just put the hydrometer into the whole batch? And if I do need to take a sample, how much is needed?

I know these are simple questions but I don't wanna mess up my first batch. Any other tips are greatly appreciated. Thanks
 
Howdy,

Ok to answer to your first questions usually you should add your grain when your water is hot not cold. Some brewers bring the temp up with the grain in cold and then hold at the final temp. Myself I add the grain in when the water is hot. Saying that you will drop about 10F when you add your grain in so make sure your water is 10F higher than you want to mash at. That is called your strike temp.

Well for All Grain you would do a sparge then cool the wort down to around 60-76ish so splashing it around at that time would actually be good by adding O2 to your wort before you add your yeast. Now if your not cooling down your wort I would avoid excessive splashing but I suggest getting that wort temp down before you add it to your primary (not sure if you do just wanted to make a note). As for straining the wort I don't strain my wort but that's really up to you.

I always take a hydrometer from a sample and then toss it out. THis way Im not introducting a possible infection by tossing the sample back into the primary. You need enough of a sample to get the hydrometer to float so you can read the number at the sample line.

It's hard to give you tips because I don't know what equipment you have. I do recommend 100% that after your boil you get that temperature down ASAP to the 60-75F ish temp. This is very important as it allows for a proper cold break (aids in clarity), and to decrease your chances of getting an infection.

Hope this helps
Grimmy
 
mhdfj2 said:
First off I wanna say I love the forums, very helpful. I'm about to start my first batch of homebrew, a wheat beer, and I have a few questions before I start so I don't mess anything up.

1. Should I wait until my water reaches 150 to put my grains in, or put them in when the water is cold?

2. When pouring my wort into the fermenting bucket do I need to strain it? And also do I need to pour the wort carefully or is it alright for it to splash a little bit since the yeast has not been added yet?

3. When I take my hydrometer should I take a sample out of the fermenter or just put the hydrometer into the whole batch? And if I do need to take a sample, how much is needed?

I know these are simple questions but I don't wanna mess up my first batch. Any other tips are greatly appreciated. Thanks
Don't worry about asking questions.

Adding your steeping grains at the beginning of the heating process or at the target temperature doesn't matter. I always added them early on in order to avoid a temperature drop that you'd get by adding them to 150 dgree water.

Use a strainer of some sort to "fish out" the big stuff out of you kettle once the wort is cooled. I then used a Stainless Steel mesh strainer and poured my wort through that into the fermenter. The more stuff you can strain out, the better. This is the time you want to splash the wort....to aerate ti.

I use a stainless steel ladle or scopp to draw out my hydrometer samples. Usually about 3/4cup is enough to fill a hydrometer flask.

good luck and happy brewing.
 
I'm using a brewers best kit with a glass carboy as my secondary. I think that what I'm confused the most about is the hydrometer. I saw that less than a cup will be enough, but do I need to place that in some sort of jar that is tall enough for the whole hydrometer to sink down in to, sort of like a test tube? Thanks again.
 
mhdfj2 said:
I'm using a brewers best kit with a glass carboy as my secondary. I think that what I'm confused the most about is the hydrometer. I saw that less than a cup will be enough, but do I need to place that in some sort of jar that is tall enough for the whole hydrometer to sink down in to, sort of like a test tube? Thanks again.
Okay...I see. You don't have a hydrometer flask. When you get a chance, go buy one. They're cheap.

One alternative, if you're fermenting in a bucket, is to simply drop the hydrometer into the bucket and take a reading once you transfer.

I'd really recommend you go get a flask though...they're like $3.00.
 
I just did my first batch on the 24 and I had some questions about the hydrometer too, hell I still have questions. The people at my local homebrew store advised taking the plastic tube that the hydrometer came in and just using that. They said to fill it up halfway and just take the paphlett that came inside it out and put it on the outside of the tube. Thats what I did but it was still hard to read as the hydrometer wanted to lean on the tube and I spun it to try to get the bubbles away from it but it was still hard to read.
 
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